Charlemagne, also called Charles I, byname Charles the Great
(born April 2, 747?—died January 28, 814, Aachen, Austrasia [now in Germany]), king of the Franks (768–814), king of the Lombards (774–814), and first emperor (800–814) of the Romans and of what was later called the Holy Roman Empire.

Early years

Around the time of his birth—conventionally held to be 742, but likely to be 747 or 748—his father, Pippin III (the Short), was mayor of the palace, an official serving the Merovingian king but actually wielding effective power over the extensive Frankish kingdom. What little is known about Charlemagne’s youth suggests that he received practical training for leadership by participating in the political, social, and military activities associated with his father’s court. His early years were marked by a succession of events that had immense implications for the Frankish position in the contemporary world. In 751, with papal approval, Pippin seized the Frankish throne from the last Merovingian king, Childeric III. After meeting with Pope Stephen II at the royal palace of Ponthion in 753–754, Pippin forged an alliance with the pope by committing himself to protect Rome in return for papal sanction of the right of Pippin’s dynasty to the Frankish throne. Pippin also intervened militarily in Italy in 755 and 756 to restrain Lombard threats to Rome, and in the so-called Donation of Pippin in 756 he bestowed on the papacy a block of territory stretching across central Italy which formed the basis of a new political entity, the Papal States, over which the pope ruled.

When Pippin died in 768, his realm was divided according to Frankish custom between Charlemagne and his brother, Carloman. Almost immediately the rivalry between the two brothers threatened the unity of the Frankish kingdom. Seeking advantage over his brother, Charlemagne formed an alliance with Desiderius, king of the Lombards, accepting as his wife the daughter of the king to seal an agreement that threatened the delicate equilibrium that had been established in Italy by Pippin’s alliance with the papacy. The death of Carloman in 771 ended the mounting crisis, and Charlemagne, disregarding the rights of Carloman’s heirs, took control of the entire Frankish realm.

King of the Franks

The age of Charlemagne

Charlemagne assumed rulership at a moment when powerful forces of change were affecting his kingdom. By Frankish tradition he was a warrior king, expected to lead his followers in wars that would expand Frankish hegemony and produce rewards for his companions. His Merovingian predecessors had succeeded remarkably well as conquerors, but their victories resulted in a kingdom made up of diverse peoples over which unified rule grew increasingly difficult. Complicating the situation for the Merovingian kings were both the insatiable appetite of the Frankish aristocracy for wealth and power and the constant partitioning of the Frankish realm that resulted from the custom of treating the kingdom as a patrimony to be divided among all the male heirs surviving each king. By the early 8th century these forces had reduced the Merovingian rulers to what their Carolingian successors dubbed “do nothing” kings. Real power had been assumed by an aristocratic dynasty, later called the Carolingians after Charlemagne, which during the 7th century clawed its way to dominance by utilizing the office of mayor of the palace to establish control over the royal administration and royal resources and to build a following strong enough to fend off rival Frankish families seeking comparable power. During the 8th century the Carolingian mayors of the palace Charles Martel (714–741) and (prior to becoming king) Pippin III (741–751) increasingly turned their attention to activities aimed at checking the political fragmentation of the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne was thus heir to a long tradition that measured a king by his success at war, which in turn required him to devise means of governance capable of sustaining control over an increasingly polyglot population.

New forces were at work in the mid-8th century to complicate the traditional role of Frankish kingship. As a result of Pippin’s reliance on the ecclesiastical authority to legitimate his deposition of the Merovingian dynasty and his usurpation of the royal office, the Carolingians had become, in the idiom of the time, rulers “by the grace of God,” a role that imposed on them new, not yet clearly defined powers and responsibilities. The assumption of that new burden came at a time when religious renewal was gathering momentum to add a new dimension to the forces defining, directing, and sustaining the Christian community. The 8th century witnessed intellectual and artistic stirrings throughout Latin Christendom which focused on reestablishing contact with the Classical and patristic past as a crucial requirement for the renewal of Christian society. The Frankish social system, which had been based on kinship ties, on bonds linking war leaders and their comrades in arms, and on ethnicity, was being overlaid by social bonds created when one individual commended himself to another, thereby accepting a condition of personal dependence that entailed the rendering of services to the superior in return for material considerations granted to the dependent party. Moreover, the world beyond Francia was being reshaped politically and economically by the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire, the triumphal advance of Arab forces and their Islamic religion across the Mediterranean world, and the threat posed by new Scandinavian, Slavic, and Central Asian invaders.

The distinguishing mark of Charlemagne’s reign was his effort to honour the age-old customs and expectations of Frankish kingship while responding creatively to the new forces impinging on society. His personal qualities served him well in confronting that challenge. The ideal warrior chief, Charlemagne was an imposing physical presence blessed with extraordinary energy, personal courage, and an iron will. He loved the active life—military campaigning, hunting, swimming—but he was no less at home at court, generous with his gifts, a boon companion at the banquet table, and adept at establishing friendships. Never far from his mind was his large family: five wives in sequence, several concubines, and at least 18 children over whose interests he watched carefully. Although he received only an elementary level of formal education, Charlemagne possessed considerable native intelligence, intellectual curiosity, a willingness to learn from others, and religious sensibility—all attributes which allowed him to comprehend the forces that were reshaping the world about him. These facets of his persona combined to make him a figure worthy of respect, loyalty, and affection; he was a leader capable of making informed decisions, willing to act on those decisions, and skilled at persuading others to follow him.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.